


trick now or true

by rqtheory



Series: hold it, hold it, hold it steady [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, author's dumb sense of humour, flirting via post-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 02:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11198157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rqtheory/pseuds/rqtheory
Summary: "The heater's broken," Magnus announced. "Merle just pointed it out. We're trying to fix it.""By shouting at it?" They at least had the good grace to look abashed. "Listen, I don't wanna make any assumptions here - am I right in saying neither of you two numbnuts are fantasy electricians?""I've been fantasy-electrocuted," Merle said sadly.





	trick now or true

**Author's Note:**

> The .doc of this is entitled ‘amazingly dumb HR epic’, you’ve been forewarned.
> 
> I changed the rating to Teen because I realised there's a ton of swearing. My bad.

It started when the heater broke in the apartment.

It wasn't immediately obvious to them - they were spending a lot of time out training. When he wasn't wearing his gear Magnus got about in chunky knits and slippers, and elves ran hotter than humans anyway so Taako barely noticed. It was finally Merle who realised, and that was because the pot-plants he was determinedly nurturing in a range of bizarre places throughout the place started to react, drooping sadly in the cold.

Banging and curses pulled Taako out of meditation at some ludicrously early hour on Saturday morning. Annoyed, he wandered out into the living area to find Magnus and Merle staring at the heating unit on the wall.

"Wanna keep it down?" he asked. "Some of us are focusing on our beauty sleep. Might do both of you good to give it a try."

"It's 10am," Merle said.

"So?"

"The heater's broken," Magnus announced. "Merle just pointed it out. We're trying to fix it."

"By shouting at it?" They at least had the good grace to look abashed. "Listen, I don't wanna make any assumptions here - am I right in saying neither of you two numbnuts are fantasy electricians?"

"I've been fantasy-electrocuted," Merle said sadly.

"Call someone who knows about this shit before you get fantasy-electrocuted  _to death_ ," Taako snapped. "Jeez." He turned around and stomped back towards his room.

-

It couldn't have been much later - an hour or two, maybe - when he was broken out of meditation a second time by the doorbell. Which went on ringing, meaning Magnus and Merle had left the apartment. Increasingly irritated, he dragged himself back out of bed and hauled the door open. "What."

A young tiefling in overalls with the BOB insignia on the front smiled perkily at him. She was wearing intimidatingly large (and clearly non-conductive) boots and carrying a toolbox with a clipboard. "Hi! I'm Kendra from HR! You put in a maintenance request?"

He blinked at her, then swung the door open wider. "The heater, right. You're sure using a lot of exclamation marks for this early in the morning."

"It's definitely the afternoon!" she said, and headed towards the living area. "Taako, right? It was Magnus that called us, he said you'd be around." She sat herself down next to the heater.

"That's me," he said. "Did you say HR? HR fix heaters?"

"We do all the maintenance! It's not a big enough operation to have separate divisions in Corporate!" she told him.

"Mmkay. Do you need me to be here or can I go back to bed?"

"Up to you," she said, pulling a set of screwdrivers out of the toolbox. "Can you just sign the maintenance request form first?" She nodded at the clipboard.

"Sure." He signed the bottom of the form with a flourish. "Anything else?"

"Nope! Enjoy your sloth!"

Later, Taako told himself he had just chosen not to dignify that with a response.

 

The second time was a lot more desperate.

It was two thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday, after a morning of relatively intense training. Lucretia was taking 'relentless' to new levels. The three of them were lying around on the rug in the living room, trying not to groan pitifully whenever a particularly sore bit moved.

"Just let me die," Taako whined. "It's over for Taako. It's the end."

"I feel like my muscles are made of pain," Magnus agreed. “A bath’d be good if I could move.”

Merle awkwardly levered himself into a sitting position. "How 'bout a green tea, they're supposed to be good for soreness."

"Sure," Magnus said agreeably, at the same time as Taako groaned again.

"If I wanted to compound my problems by drinking boiled dirt leaves you might have a sale. Death is preferable."

"Your loss," Merle shrugged, then uttered a truly impressive old man noise as he got to his feet. "Should I turn the Fantasy Nespresso on for you?"

Taako managed a fervent noise of approval as Merle staggered into the kitchen. An extreme amount of noise, both dwarf-emitted and not, followed as he dragged his footstool around the kitchen to collect the tea from the cupboard and turn on both the kettle and the Nespresso.

A silence, and then, "Shit."

Magnus begrudgingly pulled his head off the ground a few inches, and then let it go with a thud and a pathetic noise. "What's wrong?"

"Nespresso's not working," Merle called out, keeping  _most_ of the smugness out of his voice.

"Nooooooooooooo," Taako wailed. "Now it really  _is_  over for Taako!"

Magnus snorted a laugh, fished his stone of farspeech out of his tunic, and called... someone. "Yeah hey guys, it's Magnus," he said. "We've got another maintenance issue? The Nespresso? Yeah it's not turning on." A pause. "An hour? Okay great. Thank you!" He rolled his head to the side and beamed at Taako. "Bureau maintenance team! They were pretty great in the end."

"Ugh." He fished out his own stone of farspeech anyway, threw it at Magnus. "Give me the frequency or whatever."

-

By the time the hour rolled around Taako was seriously contemplating trying the boiled dirt leaves water. They'd barely migrated from the floor to the couches, but a lethargic stupor of the kind only extreme physical exertion can induce had fallen over the room. Until the brassy buzz of the doorbell shattered it, of course.

Taako shot pleading looks at both Magnus and Merle but Merle ignored him and Magnus said "I made the call, you field the doorbell."

He definitely made a bigger production of the thirty steps to the door than he otherwise would have, and was still pouting dramatically when he pulled it open to see Kendra, looking somehow perkier than she had last time.

"Hey there Taako!" she chirped. "Coffee emergency I hear!"

"God, you really don't let up with the exclamations," he said, and gestured her inside. "I mean, thanks, I guess."

"No problem!" She handed him the clipboard as she passed. "Wanna sign or should it be Magnus? He got a special personalised note from the boss!"

And there, smack in the middle of the maintenance request form, was a lime green fantasy post-it with ' _Hi Magnus - can u & others keep water use down? Thanks, Brad'_ in curling black script.

"Note?" Magnus said, looking up at them over the back of the couch.

"Yeah, Brad  _Bradson_  says to stop using all the water," Taako told him, pulling the post-it off the form. He made his way creakily back to the couch, indignation rising. "What the hell,  _Brad_. File your complaints in person or shove it." He slumped onto the couch next to Magnus and stuck the note to his dumb human forehead. Magnus pulled it off to peer at it, and his expression went from mildly confused to sudden realisation.

"Brad Bradson! That's who it was!"

"That went by a little fast," Merle said.

"I got a ton of - these! Post-its! Not for a while now, but I used to find them like... stuck to my stuff asking me to do things. I didn't twig to it being from him when we went to Camp Goodfriend." Magnus looked pleased to have solved the mystery but then his expression abruptly darkened. "How come no-one else is getting passive-aggressive notes on their lockers?"

"The rest of us keep our shit clean, because we're not animals," Taako said.

Magnus scowled at him. "I've seen your room, that's bullshit! Anyway, this says Magnus can you  _and others_ keep water use down, and everyone here knows who has the longest showers."

Taako scoffed. "Hearsay. You waiting outside with an egg timer while Taako's in the bathroom? Pretty weird hobby, my man."

"You two are getting caught up in the wrong argument," Merle interrupted Magnus gearing up to respond. "Clearly Brad Bradson has been keeping a creepily close eye on all of us."

"Hey yeah!" Magnus said, immediately abandoning the squabble. "That’s weird!"

Taako brandished the maintenance request form, which he now noticed had 'Authorised by B Bradson' printed at the bottom, with a squiggly signature and the date. "Dude's gotta fill out these forms every time we ask for something, let's just drown him in maintenance requests till he leaves us alone."

Merle looked dubious. "Most of our things seem to work pretty well."

Taako shrugged. "No big. I'll just break them."

There was a loud bang from the kitchen, and a sudden outpouring of smoke. "I'm good, I'm good!" Kendra called out, sounding a little taken aback. "Do you guys... ever clean this thing?"

Merle and Magnus both turned pointed looks in Taako's direction. He brandished the maintenance request form again and smirked.

 

It became a game, then. Taako called the maintenance request hotline insisting that the doors in the apartment were squeaking. It was another poor sap who got sent down to deal with him this time - a spindly human, Harry, who honestly looked too young to be doing manual labor. Although Taako supposed with the addition of Angus the employment conditions regulations had been fired directly into the sun. He sniggered to himself imagining how HR had handled that one.

“I’m Harry! I’m here to fix your door hinges!” was how he introduced himself.

“Are all of you this excited about maintenance?”

Harry laughed. “I guess we all just work in a really motivated team... good boss, good culture, you know?”

“I definitely don’t,” Taako said, as disgusted as he could manage, and then immediately regretted wasting it on Harry when he saw the post-it - a very loud orange this time - on the request form. It read ' _Perhaps a Grease spell next time? B.'_

Taako grinned inwardly and scrawled ‘ _No can do my man, wrong school!_ ’ and initialled the form.

Then, it was two of the downlights needing replacement due to an unfortunate Prestidigitation accident. Kendra was friendly - “I feel like I should leave a spare toolbox in your place!” - but the sky blue postit read ' _Please take it easy on the wiring! B._ '

Round three of ‘Taako’s gonna make Brad Bradson cry’ involved a washing-machine incident which flooded the laundry. “I just don’t know how it happened,” he said sincerely, watching from a safely dry perch on the bench as Harry crouched in drenched overalls to pull seven collar stays and a small plastic dinosaur from the machine’s filter. “Probably Magnus.”

“Oh, no problems at all,” Harry said, but he sounded a little bit dubious, and the magenta post-it read ' _Maybe start checking your pockets for junk before running the wash? :)_ ' Taako counted the smiley as a sign that the tide was turning and made a collage of the postits in ascending order of ‘how much did Taako piss Brad off this time’ on the fridge.

They sent Kendra down when Taako complained about the hotplates not turning on, but Taako couldn’t help but feel the game wasn’t as fun when within a minute and a half of entering the apartment she cheerfully, but firmly, informed him it was because the stove had been turned off at the wall. She gave him the clipboard expectantly - the form was adorned with a purple post-it reading ' _Now you’re not even trying. :(_ '

Sad smiley. Taako took it as a victory.

 

The final time wasn’t even his fault.

They’d just returned from Refuge. Revisiting the past had hit them all harder than any of them cared to admit. Magnus was spending a lot of time training, running, and hitting things. Merle was off communing with nature or whatever - Taako had tried meditating nearby a couple of times but the whole shirtless thing had given him the heebie-jeebies and after a while Merle would sigh, crack an eyelid and tell him “if you’re not gonna relax a damn bit can you get lost? You’re ruining the vibe.”

It was after his third such failed attempt that Taako found himself in the apartment, alone. He’d even gone to find Angus with the express purpose of not caring about him, which was usually a guaranteed mood-booster, but he’d been off doing something for Lucretia and she was unremarkably tight-lipped about when he’d be back.

He baked an apple crumble for Merle and a lemon meringue pie with curd sour enough to burn off the roof of your mouth for Magnus, thinking, ‘rush into _that'_. And then stood in the kitchen, staring hard at both desserts while his mind went skittering back and forth between Refuge and Glamor Springs-

“Fuck this,” he muttered finally, tearing the apron over his head and stalking down the corridor to the bathroom. A bath would help. Or might’ve, if the hot tap hadn’t spluttered pitifully and died about twelve seconds in. He definitely did _not_ hesitate about calling HR. They’d been obliging for his fake problems, hadn’t they? He was practically doing them a favour, calling in with a real one.

The maintenance hotline rang, and rang, and rang - and then clicked over to a pre-recorded message from Kendra. “Hi! You’ve called HR! We can’t answer the phone right now but leave us a message and we’ll raise a ticket and get back to you ASAP!”

There was a beep, and Taako managed to stammer, “Oh... uh... it’s Taako here. Um, the hot water’s out in the apartment? I mean. Really out.” He cringed at himself. “So I guess if someone could come down soon that’d be super?” He hung up, feeling pretty gloomy about his chances for a bath, and headed back to the kitchen to see if making coconut ice for Angus would do anything to improve his mood.

He’d finished the pink layer and was about to add yellow (white was so boring) when the doorbell rang. A little confused, he made his way over and opened it.

To Brad Bradson. Holding a toolbox.

Suddenly keenly aware that he was wearing an apron and that he had at least two smears of various sugary substances on his face, Taako spent a crucial half-second processing, which was enough time for Brad to smirk at him. “So, the hot water’s _really_ out, huh?”

“What are you doing here?” Taako demanded. “Where’s Kendra? Or Harry. I would have accepted Harry.”

“It’s Fantasy Labor Day,” Brad said, too patiently, like Taako was an idiot. “They’ve got the day off. I’m on call for maintenance.” 

“I knew that,” Taako bluffed. “You know. Me and the guys are on call twenty-four sev, you forget what it’s like for the rest of you. Plebs.”

“Oh, it’s a great service you do all of us,” Brad said, nodding, sounding 100% sincere even though Taako had a growing suspicion he was being mocked. “So do you want me to fix your water or not?” He gestured, and Taako realised he’d slapped a hand on the doorframe, barring entry.

He pulled back like he’d been scalded, and then turned the movement into a casually welcoming hand gesture, _good save_. “Oh by all means my dude, mi casa su casa, you know the drill.”

Brad handed him the dreaded clipboard as he sauntered past, which was - a little sadly, in Taako’s opinion - bereft of a colourful post-it. “If I can just get your autograph on this one...”

“Sure, sure,” Taako said, finding himself without a witty comment, mutely signing the form and trailing Brad down the hall to the water heater cupboard. “I didn’t know you were like. A maintenance guy.”

Brad shot him some kind of look over the top of his glasses. “Everyone in HR is widely trained. I admit, I’m not the usual call-out guy, but I know my way around a few things.” He smiled widely. “Mind if I lose the shirt? Don’t want to get dirt on it, you know.”

“Sure, your call,” Taako muttered, and definitely did not watch avidly out of the corner of his eye as Brad efficiently shucked his shirt, folding it neatly and placing it next to the toolbox. He was wearing a singlet underneath, like some kind of _old man_ , but it left his arms exposed. Which were very. Well, they were a lot.

“So Fantasy Labor Day, does that mean you snaked the penalty rates from your esteemed colleagues?” He clucked his tongue. “Mean old Brad, looking out for himself.”

Brad laughed. An irritatingly handsome laugh. “Oh, no, management don’t get penalty rates. I just figured, you know, gotta let the team have time off to enjoy themselves.” He was leaning into the cupboard now. “Everyone needs to recharge occasionally.”

“Mmhm,” Taako said, definitely not staring at the line of Brad’s spine disappearing into the waist of his pants. “Real self-sacrificing of you.”

“Pass me the 3/8ths wrench,” Brad said, and Taako moved to comply without thinking about it. “Nothing’s a sacrifice if it’s in pursuit of team happiness,” he continued piously from the cupboard, and Taako was annoyed enough for a moment to forget staring and groan heartily.

“Do you ever get tired of talking like a fuckin’ nerd?” he demanded.

Brad popped his head out of the cupboard briefly, grinning, an edge to his expression that would have made Taako’s mouth go dry if he was the kind of elf who was affected by that bullshit. “Being honest about your feelings is the first step to true fulfillment,” he said.

Taako rolled his eyes. “You learn that on some kind of dipshit management training?”

“None of the people I manage are dipshits,” Brad said seriously, and leaned back into the cupboard. Yep, Taako was definitely being mocked, and it annoyed the hell out of him.

“I dunno,” he said, feeling mean and enjoying it. “They’re only capable of talking in exclamations.”

“They’re enthusiastic,” Brad countered mildly. “And most of the people on this moon base are in awe of you three, so that’s probably part of the reason.”

“Only most of them?” Taako said, rhetorically.

“Yeah, the others are waiting for you to do something really impressive.” Brad’s tone was totally even. Taako hated him.

“Well I guess it’s good we don’t care about our performance reviews,” Taako said, watching Brad’s lats - holy shit, his _lats_ \- shift as he tightened something in the cupboard. Or loosened it. Whatever.

There was the unmistakeable sound of Brad slamming a huge, orcish fist into the water heater. Taako nearly jumped, and a low hum he hadn’t even noticed was missing started up in the background. Brad backed out of the cupboard, dusting his hands together, and placed the wrench neatly in the toolbox. “All done. Water should be back up in twenty minutes or so.” He snapped the box closed, and smiled at Taako - what looked like a genuine smile. “All these old heaters act up the same way.”

“Uh,” Taako said. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” Brad said breezily, and tucked his folded shirt into the back of his pants. “It’s always a pleasure helping out.”

“I bet,” Taako said absently, and then had to exercise a significant degree of self-control to not clap a hand over his mouth. _Seriously?!_ His ears were probably giving him away.

Brad smirked at him again, and turned to make his way back towards the entryway. Taako realised just a second too late that at that angle-

They were both silent for a moment, before Brad made his way towards the kitchen, staring intently at the fridge. At the rainbow line of post-it notes in pride of place on the door. He didn’t say anything, just leaned in to inspect them.

“Just... keeping track of your incessant demands,” Taako blurted, moving closer, wishing he could get in between Brad and the fridge, knowing he was on pretty shaky ground but committing anyway. “You know, reminders to the team.”

Brad remained silent, and just as Taako was about to say something else inane to fill the yawning space between them he turned around and smiled. “Well, I’m glad our relationship is moving away from the epistolary.”

“I’m not - there’s no - _epistolary!_ ”

“If you want to spend more time together, you can always visit _my_ work for once,” Brad said seriously.

“Maybe I will! Wait. No! Get lost!”

Still smiling, Brad reached out and swiped a thumb over Taako’s cheek, collecting a streak of what was probably lemon curd. “Okay. See you later.”

He sauntered out of the door, leaving Taako standing in the middle of the kitchen, gaping. The door slammed before Taako thought to shout “See you _never,_ dork!”

 

 

Later that evening after training, Magnus grabbed a gatorade out of the fridge, and paused.

“Where’d the post-its go?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Taako, sullen.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: Mu made art of this and I immediately expired and took leave of this earth. https://twitter.com/rockportlimited/status/875050746877681664
> 
> Ah, the endnotes, an essay in themselves.
> 
> Takes place between Lunar Interlude 3 and Lunar Interlude 4. And either side of MaxFunCon East, I guess. Do not tell me if there are canon reasons the timing doesn’t work, I definitely don’t want to know at this point.
> 
> Entirely inspired by @rockportlimited on twitter, who said “write more Bradko you cowards it’s a good ship” and my brain, DURING A DULL HR TRAINING, went ‘ok, but you know how you hate HR? what if’ and I laughed and outlined a joke minific on my lunch break and then it became three and a half thousand words long. And not even a third of that is them actually interacting, ~*~I’m USELESS~*~
> 
> Brad has a very small but dedicated team of extraordinarily chipper employees who are perfecting the subtle art of smiling while absolutely demolishing someone and leaving them very confused about it. (Harry’s getting there). Making fun of clients is how they stay so motivated.
> 
> Google tells me coconut ice is not a global thing, so it’s basically a mix of sugar, desiccated coconut, some kind of binding agent (my mum used copha), flavouring and colouring. It’s delicious and sickly and brightly coloured and almost definitely causes hyperactivity at kids’ birthday parties.
> 
> Apple crumble is like apple cobbler, but the topping is crumbly instead of cakey and has oats and brown sugar in it.
> 
> I know a lot more about baking than I do about home maintenance.
> 
> Sorry not sorry for over-egging the ‘fantasy [REAL WORLD THING]’ jokes, I’m love them.
> 
> When I realised how long this was going to be I read the MaxFunCon East transcript to get my head around their interactions and there's a line in there from Magnus that he keeps getting notes from someone named Brad and I was like... great now I gotta incorporate that, thanks TRAVIS.
> 
> Finally, my ‘let’s all crush on someone from corporate’ super-pop mini-playlist:  
> When You Walk In The Room - Architecture in Helsinki  
> You Looked So Good - Clare Bowditch  
> Step Into My Office, Baby - Belle and Sebastian


End file.
